One of Ours

...much of the controversy about Clarke’s book — and testimony and interviews — concerns adjectives. Combating terrorism was only “important” to the Bush administration (by the eighth day Clarke was calling the Bush administration “lackadaisical” about terrorism), whereas for the Clinton administration it was “urgent” — “no higher a priority.” Except when it wasn’t. When Clarke recommended “a series of rolling attacks” against al Qaeda’s “infrastructure in Afghanistan,” his recommendation was rejected. But Clarke says “to be fair” we should understand that the Clinton administration decided it had higher priorities — the Balkans, the Middle East peace process.

By the eighth day Clarke was telling Tim Russert that the difference is that Clinton did “something” whereas Bush did “nothing.” Nothing except, among other things, authorizing a quadrupling of spending for covert action against al Qaeda.

Clarke’s apology to the American people, delivered to the Sept. 11 commission, should be considered in the context of the book, the publication of which was timed to coincide with his testimony. When, presuming to speak for the government, he said “we tried hard,” he must have been using the royal plural, because the gravamen of his book is that only he was trying hard. Indeed, parts of Clarke’s memoir call to mind Finley Peter Dunne’s jest that Teddy Roosevelt’s memoir of the Cuban expedition should have been titled “Alone in Cuba.”...

...Perjury being properly difficult to prove, Clarke, if charged, would be acquitted. Besides, it is time to stop trying to criminalize political differences, even those flavored, as in Clarke's case, by anger, malice, opportunism and meretriciousness...

...More attacks are coming because we are still far from draining the social swamps where attackers breed...

...Former senator Slade Gorton, a member of the Sept. 11 commission, asked Clarke whether there was "the remotest chance" that acceptance by the Bush administration of all the recommendations Clarke made four days after President Bush took office would have prevented Sept. 11. Clarke said: "No." So what makes Clarke strident -- his self-description -- is his belief that the Iraq war was a tragic blunder, arising from the president's monomania about Saddam Hussein and draining resources from the war on terror.

Intelligent people can and do make that argument. However...Clarke's version of it was puerile: But for the Iraq war, Sept. 11 might have caused the Islamic masses to say "maybe we've gone too far."...